Let’s be real… the last time you came across world music, you weren’t expecting any wobble. Most world music is completely void of heavy bass, synths, or anything electronic for that matter. Yet being the large world that we are, aspiring DJ’s always finds new and clever ways to mix up musical tastes. Here are some musical selections that fuse the essence spirit and culture of the world with the same kick and snare that you’re used to. 140BPM of course.

Nitin Sawhney – Daydream (Engine-EarZ Remix)

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Mexicans with Guns – Me Gusto

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Mexicans with Guns – Dame Lo

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We at Awesome Beats value a good remix and SBTRKT knows what he’s doing. London based SBTRKT just dropped his self titled debut album a couple months ago, and the instrumentals featured on this record are incredibly special. His beats are something like a big dog running through tall grass. His very frolicking makes the small pups trapped on the porch ridiculously jealous. It’s just unfair that he’s doing things you just can’t. And when you combine his bass with Little Dragon’s chords, and top it all off with a few mixes -including one by Drake? Well then you’ve ascended a lofty summit of remixes and we really don’t know what its like up there. You should take pictures and keep a journal then tell us all about it. -We sacrificed two virgins and a young calf, that’s whats allowing us to mention Drake in two recent posts…-

SBTRKT – Trials of the Past

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SBTRKT – Wildfire ft. Little Dragon (Drake Remix)

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Goldie - Inner City Life (SBTRKT Remix)

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Modeselektor - Art & Cash (SBTRKT Remix)

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It is hard to imagine what the distant future looks like for the human race. Whether we are all floating around in Jetson style cars or if we are mounting our final attack on Skynet’s Google’s malevolent and self aware search engine, we at Awesome Beats are willing to make a small wager that the music will be influenced by Mndsgn’s space age beats. The Philly based MndSgn has just dropped ‘No Maps’ and it contains every tune needed for our dystopian destiny. ‘Question’ is what a futuristic boombox will play right before it transforms into a machine built to murder you. ‘Porcelain People’ is the song you’ll chill to. Bonus: Mndsgn’s older Michael Jackson flybutter remix is obviously what the Michael Jackson tribute band will be playing at the Mars music festival in 2195.

Mndsgn – Respawn

Mndsgn – Question

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Mndgn – Flybutter ft. Michael Jackson

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Your’e asking yourself, what is Electric Forest? Why Haven’t I heard of it? What the hell is it? It’s not a stretch from being the forest from Lord of the Rings. If you’re thinking the forest from Avatar, you’re getting warmer.. No it is not on Pandora, but a far more mystical place. Rothbury Michigan.

Electric forest is one of the most emerging music electronic festivals in the midwest, in a large forest no less -4 hours north of Chicago- and featured some of the hottest names in electronic music. Headliners included Tiesto, Bassnectar, Srillex, 12th Planet, Pretty Lights, Kaskade, Stephen Marley, Eoto, Break Science, Beats Antique and Shpongle. There were also some bands and non-electronic performers as well, notably The String Cheese Incident.

Tiesto ft. Diplo – C’Mon

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Tiesto by far gave the most amazing performance of the festival. He played for over 3 hours straight, smiling and waving the whole time. Tiesto is somewhat like the Roger Federer of electronic music. Everyone knows about him and he’s basically the default dj that people talk about when they know nothing about EDM. Despite how much fame and noteriety the man has, he can pull a hell of a show and enjoy it all the same. He’s in it for the music and nothing else, and that’s why we love him. I was incredibly skeptical before seeing him, thinking all sorts of reasons why Tiesto may have put on a boring/cliche show. I even debated going to his show since Bonobo was scheduled to play at the same time (more about that later). I as most of us were completely blown away by his performance, it was simply incredible and I highly advise seeing him perform if you have the chance.

Kaskade ft. Dragonette – Fire In Your New Shoes

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Bassnectar – Window Seat

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Srillex, 12th planet, Excision and Bassnectar were no less exciting. Energy packed and exhilirating dubstep formed the foundation of the festival’s focus. The crowds were massive, thousands of kids in attendance, all camping out at the ajdacent campsite. During the day there was almost a circus feel to the event people were walking on stilts and plenty of people were wearing costumes (one guy dressed up as a mushroom), but once the night set in it was unmistakably a rave. Scores of chicks rocked out with LED hulahoops, fans brought props, puppets, glow-ware and of course, the tens of thousands of glowsticks. As soon as a song was about to drop, everyone threw them as high as they could into the air, plenty of fun and amazing vibes during these shows.

Srillex – Needed Change ft. 12th Planet

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On the last day, a secret forest duet was held between Break Science and Pretty lights. Announced only minutes before Break Science was scheduled to play, Pretty Light’s Derek Vincent Smith decided to join his former drummer Adam Deitch on stage in the forest. The two of them together form an unbelievably talented team. Pretty Lights also put on a fantastic show to end the 4 day festival.

Kanye West – All of the Lights (Pretty Lights Remix)

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Bonobo dropped out as he was originaly scheduled to peform, yet there was no lack of talent at the festival. It was the first and only Electric Forest, as it replaced the former ‘Rothbury Festival.’ Hopefully the festival will be here to stay.. The full lineup can be found here.

All blue title links are mediafire mp3 downloads

Have some extra time on your hands? After reading this post and recommending this humble blog to your beat loving friends, go over to youtube and search “Shlohmo.” We promise that this action will consume a lot of your experimental-electronic-hip-hop time (note: if you misspell Shlohmo as Shlomo you might not become familiar with the human beatbox who essentially killed it at Glastonbury in ’07). Henry Laufer, a lanky Jewish 20 year old who has been recruited to the growing Southern California beat ninja army, is able to fuse the most eclectic of samples with your best induced memories. And his beat making abilities run the gamut.

Drake – Marvin’s Room (Shlohmo Remix)  

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Wedidit Collective

We’re not really sure what’s in the water in South London, we’ve got a top team of board-certified scientists on it but unfortunately no data has came through because our scientists are too busy skanking to tunes like this. This amazing track from a couple of youngsters has me optimistic about the future. If our teens can make tunes like this, look to your nephew.. aka 3 year old Timmy. What will he be making in 10 years!?

Blue You’ is an electrifying tune, it’s intense energy automatically captures the listener, dancing is not an avoidable option! Disclosure’s sound is energetic and bumping. Feel good synths meet hard bass-heavy beats. Disclosure consists of brothers Howard and Guy Lawrence, they’ve been impressing us for quite a while, and it’s about time they receive some credit. Check out all of their tracks @soundcloud

Disclosure – Carnival

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It’s as if Mtendere Mandowa awoke one day and embarked upon a quest to paint pictures into people’s minds… In the first leg of his journey Mtendere frequented Los Angeles’ beats temple Low End Theory where he observed first hand the arts of Daedalus, Tokimonsta and Gaslamp Killer. Affirmed in his quest, Mandowa moved into a dojo apartment complex with the esteemed Flying Lotus and Samiyam of Ann Arbor. A place where under their tutelage he was baptized under the beat gods as Teebs. Teebs has indeed found a way to assault his listener’s senses via sound. Each mellow beat comes together almost visually, a skill-set derived from canvas. At times, it’s even hard to remember his songs are simply sounds or rather tones; fused together to construct what is perceived as music. As a new Brainfeeder ninja, Teebs has honed his skill and crafted Ardour after two long years, in stores now.

Teebs – Wind Loop

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Teebs – Pretty Poly

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Teebs – Wlta

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Teebs – Personal Winter

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